The following information is from the Minnesota Department of Health. Please follow us on Facebook or subscribe to our website, meinderslibrary.com, as I will be posting additional information and resources throughout the month.
It is Mental Health Awareness Month. While mental health is important to address year-round, Mental Health Awareness Month provides a dedicated time for people, organizations, and communities to join their voices to broadcast the message that mental health matters.
Week 2 – Connecting with yourself. Self-connection, or self-care, is about finding practices that help you thrive, and it can include a range of things. It takes purposeful effort, but it can help you maintain or improve your daily mental well-being. Prioritizing time to connect to yourself doesn’t have to be time consuming or expensive, and it is important for you to find out what works best for you. Identify a few ways you’d like to prioritize your own well-being. Set aside the time you need to do it, give yourself permission to embrace it if it is hard for you to prioritize yourself, and work towards adding these moments regularly into your life. Know that what taking care of yourself may look like can change over time, and it is okay to adapt to what activities you engage in to fit your needs.
- Just like you do things to take care of your body, there are things you can do regularly to tend to your mental well-being. This can look different for everyone. The JED Foundation has a variety of resources to help find ideas to add to your self-care practice.
- Learning to recognize and name your emotions and know how they show up for you mentally and physically will help you navigate life when your emotions are strong. The Mental Health Coalition has tools for identifying and dealing with feelings.
- Being well connected to other people promotes positive mental health and physical health and gives life meaning. Connecting with others is one of the 10 Tools for Resiliency that Mental Health America has put together to help you feel stronger and more hopeful.
- Finding movement that’s a good match for you physically and mentally can help you thrive. Be kind with yourself and your body in the process of learning to move! Explore these videos from the University of Minnesota’s Move + Thrive Project that features diverse bodies and a variety of movement and meditative practices.
I hope you continue to follow along this month as I post weekly key messages. Be the one to start a conversation and engage with others about mental health. Stay tuned for next week as I discuss Connecting With Others!
Until next time, stay happy, healthy, and safe! ~Sally~
